


Safe to Shore: a North/Wash/York collection

by anneapocalypse



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Polyfidelity, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:59:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All my North/Wash/York shortfics taking place within the  <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/522750/chapters/924548">Respite</a> continuity are collected here, in chronological order where it matters. As I don't have any intentions of writing more at this time, this collection can be considered complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enough for Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Early morning cuddling on the _Mother of Invention_.

It’s not often they get to do this. Even though York’s got a single for holding Number Three, and the second bunk in North’s room is unoccupied at the moment, it’s just too risky to spend whole nights together except rarely. It’s tough being three, all on different training schedules and often different mission teams, but they sneak their moments where they can.

Sometimes early in the dead hours of morning, Wash finds himself awake and staring at the ceiling and too many thoughts tearing around in his head: how fast things are moving, when he’ll get his AI and what that’ll be like, if it’ll make him better, stronger, what it’ll be like when all three of them have AIs and if things will change, what will happen with the Project and how someday they won’t be here, all of them, aboard the  _Mother of Invention_  and what that will mean and that thought ties up like a knot in his chest because what  _will_  that mean, and then he swings his legs quietly out of bed with a glance at Maine to make sure he’s still out and then nudges the door open and pads down the corridor in his sock feet.

He tries North’s door first, because it’s closer, and it’s locked of course but after a moment he hears the soft click of the lock releasing and when the door slides open Theta’s warm fuschia glow greets him with a silent wave. In that glow he can just barely make out North rolling over and blinking sleepily, gesturing _come here_  and Wash does without a word, knowing if it were any time other than four AM they’d say something but right now there’s no need. Theta flickers away and Wash knows where he’s gone, even before the door cracks again and York appears, because Theta doesn’t understand everything but he understands that they’re three.

It’s not enough room for much, it’s barely enough room to move without sending one of them to the floor, but North slides back against the wall and tucks Wash against his chest and York curls against Wash’s back and there’s no sound but the three of them breathing in the dark. In a couple of hours they’ll be up and moving and talking and laughing and picking on each other mercilessly like they always do, about little things that don’t matter, not because they wouldn’t make cracks about this but because around the others they  _can’t_. But this little pocket of warmth and quiet before wake-up . . . it’s enough for now.


	2. Undivided Attention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> York and North have gotten pretty good at handling Wash's occasional insecurities.

Whatever he was angling for, it wasn’t quite  _this_ , flat on his back with both wrists pinned over his head by a broad hand and North draped over his chest sucking intently on his nipple, while York’s sprawled out between his thighs, both hands holding his hips down, lips wrapped around his cock.

Wash has to admit though, as he strains a little against their hands and hears an embarrassingly loud whine escape his throat,  _this_  is pretty okay.

It wasn’t really a big deal he supposes—well, it’s hard to stay annoyed at these guys anyway, nevermind when they’re doing things like  _this_  and like  _that_  with their tongues, oh god, and he’s crazy about them both, so much it makes his chest feel tight sometimes, but he’s not entirely used to the  _three_  thing, and there was a moment when the two of them kind of lingered a little longer than usual in a kiss and he got a little impatient and might’ve huffed and rolled his eyes a little and suddenly they were off each other and all over him going  _Hey, hey, Wash, you okay? Everything okay?_ and they’d exchanged a smirk that made his stomach flip and next thing he knew they were pushing him down on the floor and descending on him all hands and mouths and  _Aw don’t give us that look_ and _We got you, you know we’re gonna take care of you, right?_

Right.

Jesus Christ.

It’s not like he wasn’t aware before today how well York knows his way around a dick but  _god_ , he’s not holding anything back, and with the added sensation of North kissing and biting his way across his chest it’s just—it’s almost too much.

He gasps as North’s mouth travels up and trails wet kisses along his throat,  _oh god the throat_ , right in the dip at the center of his collarbone, and Wash whimpers and strains a little. “ _Fuck—”_  If he had a hand free he’d be tugging on York’s hair, wouldn’t be able to help himself and it’s not like York doesn’t like that but North’s got him good and pinned.

York sinks low over him, letting the tip of Wash’s cock bump the back of his throat, wet and hot and impossibly tight, before drawing back with a hard drag of his tongue to just work his lips over the head, god those gorgeous lips of his, Wash can’t quite see over North but he can imagine the sight of it and the thought combined with the too-light touch of York’s mouth, the agonizing brush of his tongue collecting a bead of pre-come, it all just makes him  _ache_. “York, _fuck_ , I can’t—”

York raises his head as Wash’s words dissolve into a moan. “I’m sorry, I thought that pouty face earlier meant  _hey guys please hold me down and do whatever you want to me.”_  He arches his eyebrows and pulls a mock-thoughtful face at Wash before ducking back down to lick a stripe up the underside of his cock, swirling his tongue hard into the sensitive spot under the head and Wash chokes out, “Jesus, York, come  _on_.”

York closes his lips just over the head and sucks lightly for a moment, pressing Wash firmly into the floor with both hands when his hips stutter up desperately, and he can hear the smirk in York’s voice when he says, “Sure you’re not feeling neglected or anything?”

“Hngh—god, you’re awful,” Wash groans and North chuckles into the spot right below his ear, sending heat flickering down his spine. His hands twitch against North’s grip, and North takes that as a go, apparently, latching onto his neck and sucking hard enough to leave a mark, and Wash gasps weakly, “Careful,” because that’s going to be a bitch to hide, but North just moves lower and sucks another bruise into his skin, pinching a nipple with his free hand for good measure, and how good that all feels is just fucking  _unfair._

York slides his mouth back over him cruelly slow, swirling his tongue, sucking until his cheeks hollow and Wash feels him start to draw back again, like he’s gonna tease him again, the bastard, but Wash is too fucking close, the tension coiled up in him is just too much and York feels it too, thumbs caressing the hollows of Wash’s hipbones as he sinks down again, and bobs his head a little, and then faster, and Wash hears his own pleading mingle with North’s, “Yeah, baby, come on” mumbled against him as he bites into the curve of his shoulder, and Wash arches against them both, coming hard down York’s throat, feeling him swallow and work him through every last shudder until he’s spent.

He can’t even form words for a good minute or two, just lies there slack and panting as their hands release him, feels North press a soft kiss under his jaw. But something in the breathless laugh York lets out against his thigh breaks through his pleasured haze enough for him to realize they’re both still hard as hell, and even though he’s gonna need a few minutes to get back in the game, he feels a fresh flutter in the pit of his stomach at the thought that they’re nowhere near done for the night.


	3. Watch Over You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes those protective instincts can hurt a lot.

It's quiet in Recovery when North slips back in carrying a sandwich in one hand, a bottle of lemon iced tea in other, shirt still damp from a late-evening workout - not scheduled training, just hitting the weight room because he can and because it's a good mental reprieve, the sweat and burn consuming enough to mute the compounded sting of worry, at least for a while. Theta cheers him on while he lifts, and it brings a faint smile to him, how they've learned to take care of each other.

A quick stop by the mess, and then here, where York's still seated by her bed, stretched out as much as he can in the chair, legs kicked out in front of him and both hands behind his head. Eyes on the ceiling, expression uncharacteristically blank. North watches for the twitch of his brow that usually means he's talking with Delta in there, but at the moment, there's not even that.

He raises his head, though, as North approaches, drops his arms and shifts himself upright. "Hey."

"Brought you something to eat." North sets the wrapped sandwich and the tea on the stand beside the bed where Carolina lies, red hair tangled against the stark gray of the pillow. Doesn't stop being unnerving, seeing her out like that, and something about the hair particularly. She always ties it back tight, even on their off-time, not that he can remember the last time she did something fun on her off-time, but still.

"You didn't have to—"

"Shut up," North says with gentle affection, wrapping a hand over York's shoulder. "How is she?"

"Just the same," York says, tiredly.

He's a dedicated friend. No one could accuse him of being otherwise. It's been two days he hasn't left Recovery, and if North and Wash didn't keep showing up to make him eat, well, god only knows. He's missed all his mandatory training sessions, and when Wash pointed that out he just shrugged and said,  _So they bump me down the board_. Hasn't happened yet. North supposes it's that ever-present York luck. Man can screw up royally, drop a dozen balls and still make the final goal. Always manages to come out on top. Or almost on top.

"You don't have to watch over her," North says quietly, rubbing York's shoulder. He knows the answer he'll get it, but it's their ritual, this exchange.

"Someone should be here." York uncaps the bottle and takes a swallow. He doesn't add  _and who else is it gonna be_ but the question definitely hangs there. North's eyes wander to the far wall, to York's Number 3 spot on the board, Carolina's Number 2—whose idea was it to show the fucking leaderboard in Recovery? It occurs to North that when Carolina woke up after her implantation surgery, the minute she opened her eyes, that board would've been the first thing she saw.

"You know, I can sit here for a while."

"S'okay."

"York . . ."

"You'd be here if it was South."

North wants to say  _That's not really the same thing_ , but this, too, is part of the ritual, and it always goes the same way. Maybe there's a comfort in the familiarity, if nothing else.

He paces across the room, grabs a free chair and drags it over to sit beside York. It's not the same, but maybe it's close. Hard for North to say. For him, well, nothing's like a twin; no _body_ 's like South. But there's something in York's eyes that reminds him of Wash's lost look the day they got the news about Connie. The way he just went blank, like his face was made of clay, and in the days that followed, it was as though something had hardened there. And it sits uneasily in North's mind, that look on Wash and now on York. The change is almost imperceptible, maybe not even complete, and he doubts whether anyone would even notice, without knowing these two as well as he does. But it needles at him, a raw tinge of undefinable sorrow not unlike how Theta feels sometimes, how he would do anything to protect that part of both of them, whatever it is—to keep it from hardening over, never to soften again.


	4. Fortifications

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post-[Respite](http://archiveofourown.org/works/522750/chapters/924548). Wash is having a rough day. York has an idea.
> 
> Inspired by [this](http://imagineyourpolyship.tumblr.com/post/35953050395/).

There are still bad days, bad nights. Probably always will be. It's just something they accept, like laundry and rent, like two rooms for three bodies and five voices, like the perpetually dusty atmosphere of this moon they live on.

York comes up with the idea because the bed's not cutting it. The bed's not great anyway, not for three guys of their size—they can't afford a king nor could they cram one up the stairs and into this apartment even if they could scrape together the money through odd jobs or petty theft, so they've shoved together the saggy twins that came with the place ("furnished" the listing had said, and it was true, sort of) and they rotate who has to sleep in the crack, which inevitably means rolling into the dip on one side or the other and crowding and kicking whoever's got that side.

It works. It's not great, but it's good enough. You take what you can get.

Except sometimes nights are bad, and sometimes good enough isn't quite.

Wash's been withdrawn all day. Spent most of it curled up in the threadbare plaid armchair, the only upholstered thing in the place—"furnished" didn't mean anything as nice as a sofa, just the one old armchair and the rickety kitchen table and three mismatched chairs, all of which look like they fell straight out of the twenty-fourth century and landed badly.

And it's too small of course, they're all aware it's too small but the dirt-cheap rent means they can eat decently and they'll all take that over starving in luxury any day of the week. Even though there are no weeks on this moon, just a complicated system of days and months York has yet to nail down completely.

Earlier, he threw open their one little window on the far end of the bedroom and left the door open to try and pour a little daylight in. The ceiling light in the main room's been out since they moved in, and they compensate for it as best they can with a couple of lamps but it still can get pretty dim sometimes, and they're still not quite used to the oddly fluctuating day/night cycle.

The room's fallen well into shadow and Wash is still curled up in the chair just staring at his knees when North gets home late from a job, repairing some energy shielding at the colony's main research site. It's forty minutes by shuttle to the other side of the city, but it's good money and the fare doesn't make too much of a dent in it. Theta and Delta are handy as hell for that kind of work, quietly helping out with calculations and the precision operations and no one even knows they're up there. Nobody _can_ , now, and it still feels strange, having to keep them boxed in like that, but it's the way it has to be.

Of course they could make more credits with both of them working at the same time, but there's an unspoken agreement between them that Wash isn't ready to be left alone yet, and they'd both sooner eat moondust than risk something happening to him, so they trade off, and they make do.

North comes in, locking the door behind him and tossing his jacket on a hook and kicking his boots off, his nod telling York the job went well. His eyes immediately turn to Wash in the chair, and then to York, who nods back soberly.

"Dave?" North goes to his side, resting a hand on his shoulder. Outside, they live under a set of meaningless pseudonyms. With each other they still use their Freelancer names a lot of the time, just force of habit, but sometimes Wash's real name helps to pull him away from the remnants of Epsilon still caught in his mind.

Sometimes they hang on tight.

There's a pained look on Wash's face like he's trying to say something, trying to respond, but something keeps pulling him back before he can get the words out.

"I'm sorry," Wash murmurs finally, low enough York has to strain to hear him. "I can't, I'm sorry, I just . . ." There's a detached, disoriented quality to his mumbling, the kind where York's never sure whether he's talking to them, exactly. But he looks up just long enough to meet York's eyes, then North's, before dropping his eyes again and rubbing both hands wearily over his face. "I'm sorry, I just can't."

North rubs his shoulder gently. "It's okay. You don't have to." He glances at York and asks in a low voice, "Has he eaten?"

"Not a lot," York says apologetically. He know North doesn't blame him, they both know how it is with these episodes, but seeing Wash curled up all day with that blank-eyed, weary expression makes him feel about as helpless as he's ever felt about anything. Wash squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and sinks further into the worn chair, hugging his knees, looking for all the world like he wants to fold himself as small as possible, like even this cramped apartment feels too big for him.

North runs his hand tenderly through Wash's hair, his face heavy with concern.

But York is thinking of blankets.

Blankets, at least, they've got plenty of. That was something they learned the hard way. The moon's like a desert, gets damn cold out at night and over here on the cheap mass-housing side of the city the buildings are little more than prefab pods stacked together with only moderate insulation. They're lucky enough not to have an outer wall on the long side, but it still gets chilly, and a few extra blankets, they quickly discovered, cost a lot less than cranking up the heat. That plus the combined body heat of three people, well, they can make the shitty bed cozy enough even during the coldest season.

But York's got a better idea.

 

He tugs the blankets off the bed, pulls the extras out from where they're stashed underneath and hauls them all out to the main room, trailing corners behind him.

North turns to look, and his eyebrows shoot up. "Uh . . . York?"

"Got an idea," York says, dropping the mess of blankets in the middle of the floor and looking around. Not much to work with—a smallish table, three lightweight chairs—but he's creative.

Delta perks up in his head, running quick calculations and suggesting different configurations so rapidly York has to stop him and ask him to slow down. But yes, this'll work—he'd been thinking the table as the center but that won't work, it's too small and the legs will just get in their way, it should be one of the corners, turned at an angle, and—

York gets to work, draping a short gray blanket over the table so it just touches the floor on the outer side. Then a wider goldenrod-colored one to stretch from the table to two of the chairs, back to back, anchoring the blanket between them. North is watching him with an expression half-perplexed, half amused, and even Wash lifts his head a little to see what's going on.

Theta appears over North's shoulder and claps his hands. "It's a fort!"

York keeps going, overlapping a purple blanket with the gold one and pulling in the third chair to prop up the side where they meet. It's not the most stable thing but it'll do. Needs one more solid corner, though. Needs—

"Wash." York approaches the armchair and leans on one arm, sliding a hand over Wash's shoulders. "Can I borrow your chair?"

Wash kinda half-snorts, the most present he's sounded all day, and uncurls himself from the chair. He grabs one side of it and York grabs the other and they shove it into place, close enough to drape the last corners of blanket over it, forming a crooked three-sided tent, of sorts. North's mouth quirks up in a half-smile and he steps forward to help straighten the blankets and cover the gaps.

York goes back to the bedroom for pillows, lifts a flap of blanket gingerly to stuff them under before gesturing to the others and crawling in. Wash drops to his knees and follows, and North behind him.

It's a tight little triangle for the three of them and York almost knocks over the lone chair trying to make room for North to get in. But it stays up. Good enough. There are a couple of blankets left over and Wash wastes no time kicking one out over the flat carpeting and dragging the last two over himself. York tucks in facing him, North at his back, and there's a few moments of shuffling and shifting pillows and arms and legs in the dark as they settle in.

"This is good," Wash murmurs. He still sounds tired, but it's a more present, ordinary tiredness. Less that hazy, disconnected exhaustion. It is good, York has to agree. That sense of being tented in, the dark walls draped around them, the warm familiarity of being wrapped up with each other.

"I'm kind of a fan myself," North says softly into Wash's hair, and York feels a hand on his side as North's arm comes to rest over both of them.

He brushes a kiss against Wash's lips, and he can't be sure but he thinks he feels him smile just a little.


	5. Not Like Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not snow, and it's not a fire, but there are worse ways to spend a night.

A fire would definitely be nice.

So would snow.

The moon dust looks kind of like snow. A little. Okay, not really at all. It's whitish, well, whitish-gray to gunmetal depending on the light. A coating that settles on everything, fines that puff up around a bootstep. You brush it off, it settles again, lazily in the low grav but it settles. Not like snow at all, really. But in the low lights, that gray-white tinge over the streets and the rows of buildings gives it all a frosty look.

Wash stuffs his hands in his pockets as they walk. It's cold for real. Every now and again a sharp breeze.  _Nippy_. Somebody used to use that word. Who it was isn't coming to him. Could find it if he pushed, maybe. Wash is a little fuzzy tonight, not the bleared-out aching desperate  _lost_  he feels when the remnants start burning holes in his mind, just unfocused. He's okay right now, just tired.

And that's okay.

They walk beside him, on either side of him. Nobody saying anything, just strolling without hurry over the dusty sidewalk. It's a dark day on their moon (Wash still has a hard time keeping the cycle straight), one of a pair named Orpheus and Eurydice by someone who probably thought that was clever. The gas giant they orbit has come to be called Hades, though that's not its official name. Wash has never seen Orpheus. People say it's nicer. People say "nicer" is an understatement. In the dark sky the constellations are prickling-sharp against the the black in the moon's thin atmosphere. Ryd's terraforming isn't complete, probably never will be, and between the thin air and the dust, people don't spend a lot of time outside. A short walk's okay, steps dream-light on the cool gray walk between the rows of night-lit buildings, coldly uniform.

Not that Wash gets out much anyway. But the occasional walk helps clear his head—especially in the cold, oddly enough. In their tiny underheated apartment the cold creeping in through the thin wall makes him feel sluggish and drained. But a walk in the raw chill sometimes pierces the fog in his mind, drives a wedge between what is and what isn't, what's him and what's not.

North walks on his right, York on his left. Rich. Jason. Sometimes to steady himself he'll repeat their names over in his head, theirs and his own. Their Freelancer names, their real names, their moon names. Even the pseudos that don't mean anything have a certain effect. Reminding him where he is, putting the timeline and the succession of things back in order. John is for North is for Rich. Rob is for York is for Jason. Ben is for Wash is for David.

Strings of secrets. But his. Names that point to faces that point to real, solid people who walk beside him, with real steps that leave imprints in the dust, whose breath clouds in front of their faces in the cold, who don't vanish if he reaches out to touch.

It's touching he's thinking about when they get back to the apartment, taking turns one at a time knocking their boots against the doorframe to shake the dust loose so it doesn't track in all over. It gets in anyway but they do their best. North and York's cheeks are both gone pink from the cold, noses too. Wash thinks he would like to kiss both of them, feel the chill on their skin melt to warmth under his lips.

Jackets are shrugged off, boots unbuckled. York rubs his hands together; North peels off his socks, Wash leaves his on.

Home feels a lot warmer when you're stepping in out of the cold. Even if the bedroom is about as far from the single radiator as it can be, and the best they can do is pile the blankets on and leave the door between the rooms wide open to coax the heat in. As the days get colder they've been using the bed less and less, just piling blankets and pillows on the floor in front of the heat. North usually ends up throwing the blankets off him somewhere in the night, but Wash can't sleep cold, never understood why people say cool nights are good for sleeping. York says they oughta just drag the mattresses into the main room. Who cares, right? Not like they've got anybody to impress.

Last night's bedding is still lying in an untidy heap on the floor. Wash has a mind to get in there.

"Anybody want some tea?" North asks, moving toward the kitchenette on the far side of the room.

"I'm in," says York and it makes Wash snicker a little under his breath, because back on the _Mother_ York wouldn't touch tea, nothing but coffee for him, black and bitter as death. No coffee on Ryd—they've been here long enough to know that whatever's _called_ "coffee" around here definitely isn't, and you're better off sticking with tea. He snickers because it's endearing thinking of York's little habits—oh, he might tease Wash and North about being creatures of habit, Wash especially, but he's got his own for sure—and because to force a laugh dulls the sting, just a little, of what they've sacrificed for this life, for the escape from Freelancer. For him.

"Wash?"

"Yeah."

North flips the switch on the water heater, the sort of thing you're supposed to leave on all the time for convenience if you don't mind the power drain. It takes the unit a few minutes to heat up, and they'll leave it on for an hour or so to get a few cups out of it, then shut it off for the night.

Wash sits himself cross-legged in front of the radiator, pulling a blanket out of the pile to wrap around his shoulders. York curls in beside him, stealing a corner. Wash elbows him. "Hey. Get your own."

York makes a show of flopping against Wash's shoulder and tugging half the blanket around himself, and the glint in his eyes is more than his usual playfulness—it's something Wash has come to recognize in both of them since Freelancer. Relief. Everytime he bickers with them, cracks a joke, laughs, smiles even, it's there to remind him that they're worried for him every minute of every day, watching and waiting for him to slip back.

He really hopes someday they don't have to look at him like that.

But North's coming over with two steaming mugs, handing them over carefully before going back for his own, and Wash blows lightly on the surface to cool it while York takes a sip right away and curses under his breath, probably burning his tongue like he always does. North settles on the other side of Wash, dragging a blanket over his lap, brushing a kiss lightly against Wash's temple and reaching around him to squeeze York's shoulder before turning to his cup of tea. Wash takes a cautious sip of his own, wrapping his fingers tight around the hot mug. The heat from the radiator brings a pleasant flush to his face, and York and North are warm on either side of him too, shoulders nudging him when they move, and Wash has to admit, as much as he hates to feel like a burden, right between the two of them is the safest place he knows.


	6. Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are still bad nights.

He wakes from from blonde hair from blue eyes from whispers from _hate goodbyes_ wakes

like clawing his way up from water from freezing from under the ice from drowning

his fingers catch and freeze in place while still it churns drags pulls catches tugs him back

to _killed in action_ to _shot down_ to _two agents were killed_ to the anguished cry that is him and is not him the voice that

cries _help her_ cries _save her_ cries _we have to_ cries _please_ cries _help me it's not too late yet please_

Hands catch him.

His body isn't cold.

He isn't in a room of eyesearing blue light and unspeakable pain, he's caught between two sets of arms tangled, and two voices. Not his. Not in head. Real. Real. Breathed against his neck and kissed on his forehead.

"Dave."

"David."

"Dave it's just a dream, you're here, you're with us."

"Sweetheart, wake up, it's gonna be okay."

He's shaking too hard to move, he's afraid to open his eyes, but these voices, they are outside of him, they are real. They are warm. They are alive.


End file.
